Liza Minelli trilled “life is a cabaret, old chum” but life is a Balingup Medieval Carnival for Carol Bullard. The former school administrator has piloted her first carnivale to a resounding success.
BALINGUP’S Medieval Carnivale committee president Carol Bullard is thoroughly happy with 2010’s Carnivale – her first foray into “show business” on a large scale.
“The buzz of the people in costume, the whole festival attitude, the people dressed up and participating . . . the stallholders were great in the way they participated and were in costume,” she recalled last week.
Echoing the mood of Juan Antonio Samaranch after the Sydney Olympics, she said happily: “Everybody said it was the best Carnivale yet.”
An estimated 9500 people attended the event over the weekend of August 28 and 29 - up on last year’s crowds,
Carol said the carnivale was the biggest event she has been involved in organising so far and it was an exciting weekend.
Her 20 years of experience as a business manager in independent schools had prepared her well for the challenge she took on as this year’s carnivale committee president, she said.
She also had a fair idea of what the carnivale was all about. She has been to every carnivale since her arrival in Balingup in 2007.
What people would not have realised was all the infrastructure work that had gone on throughout the year. That was the reason the carnivale was so good, she said.
“There was more space to get around, you could see the parade better and people queuing for food didn’t have to fight the throng at the entrance.
“But the highlight for me was the amazing committee, their tireless work and enthusiasm for the whole process.”
The entertainment was exciting, such as the fire dancing, the camels and the wandering “Death” character, Carol said.
“The burning of the dragon was fantastic. I don’t think anyone standing there realised how much work had gone into it,” she said.
“And it was fabulous to see all the little knights in chain mail, the little children loved it.”
Carol said she was amazed at the number of people in costume.
“It’s an expense to dress up and there’s a commitment to being in the spirit of it,” she said.
“The main street was amazing, with all the flags and jester heads that led into the carnivale site. The fighting area looked fantastically mediaeval too. I loved the flags and pageantry.”
The displays by people working at mediaeval crafts in their tents had been impressive too, from the pottery to the making of chainmail and helmets, Carol said.
“The fighting team dressed as Saracens were fantastic,” she said.
She said the trebuchet on display was also fantastic, and something the committee was looking at developing into the future.
(For those who weren’t there, trebuchet or trebucket , according to Wikipedia, was a siege engine used in the Middle Ages. The counterweight trebuchet appeared in both Christian and Muslim lands around the Mediterranean in the 12th century. It could fling projectiles of up to 350lb (140kg) at high speeds into enemy fortifications. Occasionally, disease-infected corpses were flung into cities in an attempt to infect and terrorise the people under siege, a medieval form of biological warfare. The trebuchet did not become obsolete until the 16th century.)
Carol said she loved being part of the carnivale committee.
“There’s a whole sense of a common cause, they’re just all pulling in the same direction,” she said.
“They’re a fantastic committee who get on, know what they have to do and do it well.”
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